Cloudy

The rabbit ate a lot of the morning glory vines but not the ones closest to the patio.  The first blue flowers opened.  The monarch chrysalis seemed to be doing OK.  A daylily rebloomed.  Lots of little brown parasols poked up in the grass. 

 A hummer came for lunch.  A foolish skinklet climed the feeder post, just begging to become a meal.  Finally it seemed to realize this was not a good place to be and came back down much faster.  Why do the best moments always come when I cannot get a photo?  At lunch, when my hands were sticky with barbeque sauce, blue jays were hitting the bark butter and a brown thrasher slipped in.  The jays weren't having that, but then they squabbled over which one was next.  Then a red bellied woodpecker tried to get a bite.  And then they all disappeared.

Bees and wasps seemed well fed on the mountain mint, but two monarch caterpillars ran out of milkweed.  The black swallowtail caterpillars had enough food but may have been more palatable to predators.  A goldfinch wanted a drink.  Then Carolina wrens came for bark butter, one of them very disheveled.  I'm not sure if it was a juvenile or a molting adult, but the other did not appear to be molting.  A couple of squirrels flirted.